Monday, July 5, 2010

The Financial Times reports on a soon to be published article showing that US pharmaceutical drug prices are not really all that much different than European drug prices when comparing the same drug at prices paid in the marketplace. Previous studies have used brands vs. generics prices instead of brand vs. brand or generic vs. generic and also used posted prices versus discount (for buying in bulk) prices instead of discounts for discounts. While drug prices are higher here in the US, they are not as great as popularly thought. This also suggests that markets are able to converge towards similar prices without mass government intervention.